100 Word Story: Dearly Departed

Another 100 word story.  I wrote this back in 2009, when I was equally fascinated with micro fiction and zombies.  This was originally published at http://www.microhorror.com/microhorror/author/scott-d-hughey/dearly-departed/

There's a better story than the one here, I think.  Maybe one day I'll take my time and explore what happens next.

Dearly Departed

By Scott D. Hughey

My wife moaned as she tried to bite me. Handcuffs held her fast to the bed.

I still loved her, and couldn’t bear to kill her. She’d begged me to when she was bitten. We had almost made it. I’d dropped the keys when the dead attacked. We retreated. Too late.

“Jake,” she’d said, her arm bleeding. “Don’t let me become one.” I promised– the first lie I ever told her. I loved her too much to let go.

“Till death do we part.” Was this death? Maybe sickness?

“I’ll protect you. I’m going to find you someone to eat.”

100 word story: FUNeral

A few years ago when I thought I was a writer and hadn't yet figured out that one must write to hold that title, I became fascinated with what was termed flash fiction.  Or micro fiction.  Or any number of other terms.

Today flash fiction typically means a story of 0-100 or 0-500 or 0-1000 words depending on who you ask.  I believe the 1000 word threshold is the more common definition.  And it's far too long.

I had the great pleasure and disadvantage of reading an excellent 100 word story by someone.  I decided, "This is my niche."  By which I meant, "This is my shortcut."  I would write 100 word stories.  I wrote somewhere around 50 of them, which was 50 short of my goal.

I still love them, and when an author makes them work they marvel and astound.

The problem back then is, Of those 50 or so stories I wrote most of them weren't stories.  They may have been nice story ideas, but not a lot more.  Not saying they all stink, but they're not all great and you would have had a hard time convincing me of that back then.

All that to say this, I read through them mining for story ideas.  And I've decided to post some of them here.  Hope you like them.  Bear in mind, this is the writer of about 3 or 4 years ago.  Hopefully I've grown.

This was one of my favorites:

Nathan caused an uproar when he got out of the coffin in the middle of his funeral.  Specifically, he caused three screams and at least one emptied bladder.  We should have known better than to bury him on April Fools Day.

Nathan bowed and politely thanked us all for coming. We were so shocked that we listened as he gave his own eulogy.  Well, everyone listened except the Baptist minister who was still groggy from fainting.  

Nathan cracked himself up so much he started choking and essentially laughed himself to death.  We finished the ceremony closed casket.  Just in case.